MarketingSherpa Summary - Why They Won:
All the experts say, "Don't pound your list too much!" So what do you do when you want
to increase frequency for the big holiday season to make maximum sales without
annoying people or being mistakenly sent to the "junk" box? This marketing team used a
great combination of segmentation (send more frequently to your best clickers only) and
creative tests to achieve record-breaking sales.

From Their Nomination Form:
Starting in mid-November 2006, Sprint launched a multitouch holiday retail campaign targeted to existing
Sprint and Nextel customers. There were four phases of the campaign each with unique targets and offers.
Phase I launched on 11/16/2006 and was sent only to 'frequent clickers' from the Sprint email list. This
group included people who had opened and clicked on a Sprint promotional email in the last six months.
These "frequent clickers' had previously indicated an interest in Sprint products, so they were a relevant
and engaged audience to receive an email very early on in the holiday season. Messaging was geared
towards 'early birds' who wanted to get their holiday shopping completed as soon as possible. Phase II
launched on 12/5/2006 and was sent to all Sprint and Nextel customers. This email drove to an interactive
flash microsite, complete with a holiday gift finder to help find the perfect Sprint or Nextel phone based on
personality type and/or price point.

Phase III launched on 12/13 that included tests that looked at targeting and creative. In the targeting test,
half of the drop was sent to responders, those who clicked on Holiday Phase 1 or 2 but did not purchase,
and half was sent to all non-responders (people who did not open or click) from Phase 1 or Phase II. This
email led with an urgency message in the subject line: 'Time's running out on Sprint holiday deals' that was
also reiterated in the email body copy. Creatively the email looked similar to Phase II, but half the drop
included links to both the Sprint.com store as well and the other half the Gift Finder microsite. This was
done in order to test: a) a quick shopping experience for frazzled shoppers (going directly to sprint.com) or
b) a more robust experience (using the gift finder). Phase IV launched right after the holidays (on 12/27)
and catered to the idea of people giving themselves a gift. It included a special offer just for email
subscribers ($25 off) and featured a combination of new phones and high value/low cost phones. The email
was targeted only to subscribers that were flagged in Sprint's CRM system as having a high propensity to
purchase a new phone (this modeling is based upon several data attributes). Sorry, the judges promised this
winner that we would keep their results private. However, be assured that we have seen all the data - and
were thoroughly impressed.